Posted on 05/14/2006 6:20:19 PM PDT by Spiff
President Bush will deliver a televised address to the nation tonight on immigration policy. It is his first address from the Oval Office on immigration, and if it not successful, it may be his last.
In this speech, the President needs to do three things to accomplish his goals. There is a road to consensus and success if the President will take it. It is not only a path to consensus -- it is a path to success for the Republican Party in November.
In his Monday speech, the President needs to make a clear break from previous speeches on the topic and come home to Republican Party principles. He needs to stop pandering to perceived voting blocs and employer lobbies and speak to the one thing all Americans agree upon: No immigration policy is workable without secure borders.
The President needs to speak to the nation as fellow citizens, not ethnic or economic groups, and tell them America will have secure borders that stop all illegal entry into our country. He needs to announce that he will federalize the National Guard in four border states to provide support to the beleaguered Border Patrol. He needs to say this will happen tomorrow morning, not next month or next year.
The second thing the President must do is explicitly separate the priority and necessity of secure borders from all other proposed federal legislation. Secure borders do not depend on a “comprehensive” immigration reform package that includes amnesty and a new temporary worker program. Secure borders are a prerequisite for any new immigration legislation, not a component to be bartered away for increased immigration numbers or new visa rules.
The third thing the President’s speech should do is to avoid any mention of amnesty for illegal aliens already in the country. No matter how cleverly he defines his “legalized status” proposal as not being amnesty, it is still amnesty and everyone knows it.
Americans are not in a mood to negotiate the matter of “regularization” for 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens -- and Newt Gingrich has pointed out the amnesty would ultimately legalize up to 36 million -- until they see we have in fact achieved secure borders. Once that is done, once our laws are being enforced, then we can begin to discuss the problem of how to deal with the millions of illegal aliens already living here.
I hope the President and his advisers are perceptive enough to see that this course of action is the only one that will achieve all of his goals. It will unify the Republican Party. It will stop the flood of illegals aliens crossing our borders. And perhaps most importantly, it will point America in a positive direction for immigration policy and set a foundation for future reform. To be sure, it will not solve all of our immigration-related problems -- but it will be a much-needed and long overdue start.
A new beginning is what we desperately need, and the President’s speech can do that if it is based on candor, on Republican principles and the priority of secure borders. Anything less will not only not be a new beginning, it may very well be the end of Republican coherence and credibility.
Rep. Tancredo (R.-Colo.) is chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus.
"first ask Dorgan what he's done to secure HIS state's border with Canada?"
It's not what he's done that counts at this very time it's what he's going to do that matters. If he introduces this ammendement to stip the guest worker program from the bill, then he has doing the job that Congress is unwilling to do.
Then we need to get rid of the blacks since they have the largest percentage of their men in prison right? The Crips and Bloods would take umbrage about the gang population.
If there is amnesty and rewards in any plan, it is doomed to fail. Period. Secure the border and then come back later with a "guest worker plan". The House of Representatives had the right idea with the Republican bill. The Kennedy plan that the President is embracing - and which he may slightly modify Monday evening to try to sell it to his angry base - is unacceptable. Any future proposal - after the borders are secured - of a path to citizenship needs to disqualify border violators who don't deport themselves before a certain deadline and it must require that they return to their home nation and stay there to apply. Anything else rewards criminals. Rewarding criminals is not a conservative or a Republican value.
Wait.
What you are saying is that illegal aliens who deport themselves back to Mex. and who apply for the "guest worker plan" from Mex. would be okay with you.
Isn't that still amnesty? They would have the unfair advantage of knowing what jobs to apply for and they would have the unfair advantage because they have experience from similar jobs held in the U.S.. Plus what about any punishment for their crossing of the border into this country illegally in the first place.
How would that not be amnesty?
I think that line alone proves you will never be replaced by a computer. There isn't a circuit simple enough.
You have admitted to KNOWINGLY hiring illegals.
THAT is a crime.
In fact, you seemed quite proud of it. What kind of Republican are people like you, anyway?
___
He's the kind that puts his own interests (greed) in front of that of the Country and of it's citizenry.
Rep. Tom Tancredo did not hire illegal aliens. You are a liar and are repeating false information from a series of false attacks perpetrated by Conservative Republican Tom Tancredo's Democrat opponents.
Creative Drywall Design was contracted to do drywall for Rep. Tancredo's home theater. Creative Drywall Design was required by law to check the immigration status of its employees. Creative Drywall Design did, in fact, check the immigration status of its employees and they had all the legal documents from those employees which demonstrated that they were legal to be hired. Two employees later said that they had provided false documentation to Creative Drywall Design.
Neither Rep. Tom Tancredo, nor Creative Drywall Design were determined to have broken any laws. If you understood the laws you would understand that.
Conservative Republican Tom Tancredo believed he had hired a reputable contractor - who possessed appropriate contractor licenses, etc. - to perform the work in his home. Creative Drywall Design complied with the law and was able to produce the documentation that the employees had provided them. If Tom Tancredo had grabbed the hispanic, spanish-speaking employees that the contractor had hired and demanded to know their immigration status, you and the Democrats would have been charging him with racism or "ethnic animus". He could have been sued under the Civil Rights Act for doing so. He trusted the reputable company and the reputable company trusted that they had the right documentation. The Denver Post reported the following about the contractor:
Creative Drywall owner J.J. Fukunaga said he has documents on file showing that each of the company's 15 employees is legally entitled to work in the U.S. The documents vary by employee but in some cases include copies of Social Security cards and driver's licenses, he said. When asked to show copies of those documents, he declined. [This is a privacy issue. He should not produce such documentation to a newspaper reporter.]The workers are paid by check and taxes withheld, Fukunaga said. "We are more organized and more in compliance than any other construction company out there," he said.
Fukunaga said the company pays competitive wages, and the two workers agreed, saying they were satisfied with conditions at Creative Drywall.
This whole situation has been checked out by Conservative Republican Tom Tancredo's Democrat opposition and they found that there was no legal issues here at all. In fact, they've dropped this particular smear because it has been discredited.
Immigration lawyers who have reviewed the case have cleared Rep. Tancredo of any wrongdoing or lawbreaking. The two illegal aliens who had provided false documentation to their employer and who had worked, unknown to Rep. Tancredo, on the basement project were motivated to come forward because they later heard of Rep. Tancredo's anti-illegal immigration positions and they knew that it would hurt Conservative Republican Tom Tancredo if they went to the liberal press with the story.
These are the facts of the case. You can either read them and understand them or you can ignore them and continue to use Free Republica - a conservative forum - to attack and smear Conservative Republican Tom Tancredo who has been awarded with a 100% "Best and Brightest" rating from the American Conservative Union.
No Einstein it is YOU that think they will look at a wall and turn around and go home.
Thank you. A Conservative that can think and write. Very well done.
It would also be well for the GOP to remember that since 1928, they have not done well without the Conservative Base.
The one that get's jumped over every other week? I don't know.
Why is there a fence around the White House?
"The one that get's jumped over every other week? I don't know."
Is that a fact or are you just bloviating again?
What does race have to do with this? Why do you keep injecting race into this debate? That is always the last recourse of people losing the argument to inject stupid insinuations of racism into their post.
Now, to kill your stupid argument here, the point is that blacks are not here illegally. Illegal aliens, no matter their race or national origin, are here illegally. If we had proper border security, they would not be here and, therefore, would not be disproportionately committing violent crimes and being imprisoned for it.
Tancredo should have told the contractor to rip the basement theater (or whatever the heck it is) out of his basement and he should have demanded his money back.
Right now Tancredo sits with an unfair advantage of having his theater built with cheap labor.
Don't you think he should have done that?
Keep up the good fight. We will see what the speech brings.
To me, the southern border is directly analagous to the situation when your young kids are taking a bath. The tub is overflowing, water is leaking all over the damn place.
Do you first take the kids out of the tub? Do you first get a larger tub? Do you first begin bucketing water out of the tub?
No, the first thing you do is turn off the faucet! The faucets are the lack of a border barrier. The MinuteMen have it exactly right. Stop the inflow, then deal with the water that has overflowed the tub. Let's get serious about this drek.
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